


keep my hands

by kimaracretak



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: F/F, Introspection, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 15:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20211667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: Emily used to think that she'd gotten good at not falling for her straight friends. But as their world has shrunk under A's gaze, she's gotten less and less sure of that.





	keep my hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firstlovelatespring](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstlovelatespring/gifts).

> Mid-s2 in an AU where they're both single.

The Rosewood High pool is cool in the summer heat, the school too cheap to keep up the heating after hours. Emily strips down to her swimsuit and slides in anyway as Hanna worms her way under the bleachers.

"I thought we were looking for evidence, Em," she says. She's trying to be quiet - they're certainly not supposed to be here, though Emily's more worried about what A would do if they found out, rather than anyone from school - but there's nothing for it: her voice carries over the nearly-still water anyway.

Emily folds her arms over the concrete lip of the pool and kicks her legs behind her idly as she watches. "I'm keeping watch," she says, and it's not really a lie. So maybe she's mostly watching Hanna, her moonlight-silvered hair and the way her shadow dances in the beam of her flashlight. Maybe she's mostly thinking about how, if Hanna were a little closer, she could reach out and touch - reach out and pull her in and ask -

Emily used to think that she'd gotten good at not falling for her straight friends. But as their world has shrunk under A's gaze, she's gotten less and less sure of that. And watching Hanna now, pacing back and forth between the bleachers and the pool like she's Spencer, Emily _knows_ that she's ...

Well. 'In trouble' runs the risk of trivialising too much of the past year, but the _wanting_ that's flared unasked for in her chest is proof that she's, yeah, maybe a little bit fucked.

Emily's always felt safest in the pool - fast, sleek, untouchable. A flimsy shield against someone like A, maybe, but in that moment Emily is absolutely, 100% positive that if she pulled Hanna into the pool with her nothing would ever go wrong again. She'd bring her underwater, kiss her forever and A would vanish, and they wouldn't need air, and -

"Em? Hello? Earth to Emily?"

Emily blinks, shakes her wet hair back from her face, and Hanna snaps back into focus. "Yeah. Sorry."

"Keeping watch?" Hanna asks. "Or," she grins, "Just watching _me_?"

"Gotta watch you to keep watch," Emily says, and mentally kicks herself at how stupid that sounds. She knows how to talk to Hanna. Liking her shouldn't change that, and _yet_.

Hanna narrows her eyes briefly, like she knows there's something Emily's not saying, and she braces herself for questions. But the moment passes, and Hanna just offers her a brilliant smile and her hand, saying, "Anyway. There's nothing there. We should check the locker rooms next. Spence showed me how to pick locks."

Emily skips over asking about the legality of that, grabbing Hanna's hand to pull herself out of the water with only minor reluctance. In a simpler world, she'd skip straight to asking Hanna - well, in that simpler world, she'd know what to ask.

Emily wrings out her hair, grabs her towel from the bench, and takes Hanna's hand as they head towards the locker rooms. For comfort. So they don't trip. For so many other reasons she doesn't have words for.

She doesn't look back at the pool.


End file.
